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After jumping through the hoops to get the floppy drive enabled in Felicia (and I hope that is fixed in future releases, because I may be using floppies for years to come, to move GCODE files to and from some old DOS boxes that run CNC machines) I eventually needed to format a floppy. I typed "gfloppy" in a terminal like I always did in previous Mint versions, and was rewarded with this error message:

CANNOT INITIALIZE DEVICE

You do not have the proper permissions to write to /dev/floppy/0 or /dev/fd0, formatting will not be possible.Contact your system administrator about getting write permissions.

I couldn't figure out how to change my permissions, but I was able to get gfloppy to work by typing "sudo gfloppy."

Was I doing something wrong, or is it normal to need "sudo" to format a floppy ?

I'm always bragging about Linux Mint, and recommending it to people who are frustrated with Windoze, but it's kind of embarrassing when Mint stumbles on something as basic as a floppy disc.

Yes, I know floppies are obsolete and unreliable, but they work fine for my application, and the alternative would require time and money.

To be able to format floppy disks in Felicia without having to enter password, you have to add a new group called floppy and add your user/login name to that group:1. Go to Control Center > Users and Groups.2. In User Settings dialog box, click on the 'Unlock' button and enter your login password when prompted.3. Click on the 'Manage Groups' button.4. The Group Settings dialog box should now appear, in which you should click on the 'Add Group' button. 5. Another dialog box will pop up. Enter floppy in Group name and put a tick next to your login name in the list below it.6. Done. You may now close all the dialog boxes.

All of the above GUI process can be significantly streamlined using the command-line:

I tried garda's proposed fix. In fact, I tried both of his methods. At first, it didn't seem to work. Gfloppy was still giving the "you do not have the proper permissions" error.

So then I did what any Windoze user would do -- I rebooted. After rebooting, gfloppy worked fine -- as long as I didn't attempt a "quick" format.

The "quick" format returned the following error:

The filesystem creation utility (/sbin/mkdosfs) reported the following errors:

mkdosfs: unable to open /dev/fd0 (33)

I tried the quick format on 4 different good (previously formatted) disks, and they all gave that error, but would format fine if I selected the "standard" format.

I also tried the quick format using "sudo gfloppy," and it also gave the above error.

So then I tried mounting the floppy, unmounting it, and again repeated the quick format. Now the quick format works fine !!!!!!

I have made progress, but I can't honestly say that Linux is floppy-friendly.

I could whine about other floppy issues -- like how some days Mint will insist that a particular floppy is write protected, when in fact it is not (I usually fix that by reformatting the floppy), but Husse probably doesn't want to hear about it. Yes, I know, if only I would stop using obsolete, unreliable floppies ...... .

garda wrote:To be able to format floppy disks in Felicia without having to enter password, you have to add a new group called floppy and add your user/login name to that group:1. Go to Control Center > Users and Groups.2. In User Settings dialog box, click on the 'Unlock' button and enter your login password when prompted.3. Click on the 'Manage Groups' button.4. The Group Settings dialog box should now appear, in which you should click on the 'Add Group' button. 5. Another dialog box will pop up. Enter floppy in Group name and put a tick next to your login name in the list below it.6. Done. You may now close all the dialog boxes.

All of the above GUI process can be significantly streamlined using the command-line:

I tried that command string.. Seemed to work okay. However a floppy drive still doesn't appear in 'computer'... Can you get it to be visible there so you can then click on it in the same was as your would the other devices?

Thanks, it sort of worked.. It came up with a message box "unable to mount folder" (when I inserted a floppy in and double clicked) and yet behind that message box it still brought up thumbnails of all the pics on the floppy.

Not sure what I will see after next reboot but at least I was able to establish the floppy can and does(albeit with some mucking around) work in this box under Linux.

Thanks, it sort of worked.. It came up with a message box "unable to mount folder" (when I inserted a floppy in and double clicked) and yet behind that message box it still brought up thumbnails of all the pics on the floppy.

Not sure what I will see after next reboot but at least I was able to establish the floppy can and does(albeit with some mucking around) work in this box under Linux.

Mychael

Well after a reboot, the floppy icon has disappeared from the desktop again, so guess I am back where I started.

The way I got my floppy to work is I added floppy to /etc/modules and I get it to format by edit menu accessories clicked to show floppy formatter -clicked properties and added gksu in front of the command gfloppy.I don't have floppy in users and groups or in /etc/fstab.